on April 11th, 2012

11

Apr

Gail Eichenthal with Sophie Gayot

It’s too bad that my schedule is so busy that I am not able to attend Gail Eichenthal performing the C Major Prelude from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier on a piano specially placed in the International Plaza on the USC campus. (Eichenthal is program director for KUSC, the only Southern California public radio station featuring classical music 24 hours a day, and executive producer of the weekly radio programs Arts Alive and LA Opera On Air.)

On April 12th at noon, she, along with 29 other professional and amateur pianists, will play the same classic simultaneously on 30 different pianos deployed all over the Los Angeles area from San Pedro to downtown L.A.

on February 08th, 2012

08

Feb

Randy Jackson with Sophie Gayot

I was not the only one dining at über-chef Wolfgang Puck’s new restaurant at Hotel Bel-Air last night (luckily for the restaurant). The multi-talented Randy Jackson, who has been a judge on American Idol since 2002 — longer than anyone else — was sitting next to me. I had dined with him before, and know he is a gourmet, so I was not surprised to see him there. As we know, he is a tough judge, nice and fair but tough…My judging of the dinner: very good California cuisine, with precise execution that grants the restaurant a GAYOT.com rating of 16 out 20. Here is the explanation of the GAYOT.com rating system.For more about Hotel Bel-Air, read my October blog post which I wrote after touring the hotel a few days before it opened.